


The School Musical

by w4shingmach1neheart



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Highschool AU, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, School Musical AU, theatre kid karkat hc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29897982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/w4shingmach1neheart/pseuds/w4shingmach1neheart
Summary: Dave and Karkat participate in the school musical. Karkat is the director, and Dave is cast as the lead.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Kudos: 7





	The School Musical

**Author's Note:**

> hiii. this is something i thought of while watching a theatre performance and im really proud of my thoughts. my brain. it's a highschool au where karkat directs the school musical and dave is the lead, and the school musical is hercules. idc that hercules hasnt been made into a broadway production yet. i think it is the most suitable for the homestuck characters.

There it is, in all its glory.  
The cast list for your school’s production of Hercules is up on the school noticeboard (finally). You speed-walk towards it, getting closer to the large huddle of teenagers, some looking disappointed as they trudge away from the list. The casting was done by none other than your irritable boyfriend, Karkat Vantas, and boy oh boy is the guy brutal with his casting. Karkat is like the Troll Simon Cowell of your school’s theatre department, you think. Hopefully at least a little bit of bias got you cast as the lead, though.

You grit your teeth as you weave between the crowd, palms becoming sweaty, legs becoming weak. Beneath the shades you are wearing, your eyes do laps up and down the noticeboard, almost missing your own name. When they freeze at the sight of the words “Dave Strider” they slowly move to the left, not knowing what to anticipate.

“Hercules” in bold letters. Next to “Dave Strider”.

Holy shit. You almost have to give yourself an uppercut to stop your jaw from dropping wide open, but HOLY. SHIT. is all you can think. All those years of tiresome work in the ensemble have paid off. Your first ever lead role. You make a note to thank Karkat for this, and never tease him for anything. Ever again.

Who else got a role?  
You scan the contents of the list, memorising all the names.

Jane Crocker as Megara. That’s an interesting decision on Karkat’s behalf, but Vriska is going to be furious. Just yesterday, she was bragging about how all her competition “S8CKED” and she had the role “IN THE 8AG”. Good God was she wrong.  
Gamzee Makara as Phil. That makes sense, he sure is short enough. And he has the right voice.  
Dirk, your brother, as the Pegasus. He obviously wanted that role.  
Eridan Ampora as Hades. You get the feeling that he didn’t want to play Hades at all…  
Vriska Serket and Terezi Pyrope as Pain and Panic, respectively. You smirk to yourself, thinking that Pain is probably a more suitable role for Vriska anyway.  
The Muses: Roxy Lalonde, Aradia Megido, Nepeta Leijon, Feferi Peixes, Jade Harley.  
Rose and Kanaya are in charge of the musical arrangements, while… Jake English is in charge of choreography. Sollux is the sound, lighting and technology guy, as usual. Tavros and Equius are working on costumes and set design. And June is assistant director to, as everyone knows, Karkat.

You can barely contain your excitement as you make your way to the cafeteria, rushing to tell everyone about everything. Amidst the hall filled with chatter and mediocre-tasting food, you promptly dash to the table where you and your friends sit, slamming down your belongings.

“HEY GUYS GUESS WH-”  
Eridan promptly cuts you off.  
“We all know Dave. You get to be Hercules, bluh bluh.”  
Karkat, almost out of his chair, starts screaming at Eridan.  
“ERIDAN SHUT THE FUCK UP. WE ALL KNOW YOU’RE JUST PISSY BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T GET THE ROLE OF HERCULES AND YOU DON’T GET TO KISS A GIRL AT THE END. BIG WHOOP, YOU SAD DEGENERATE.”  
After achieving his goal of leaving Eridan muttering about how he’s “not pissy” while picking at his food, Karkat clears his throat and turns to you.  
“Anyways,” he pauses and motions for everyone around the table to join in even though they already know the news, “Congratulations Dave, I hope you do well in this role. Don’t fail me like a shitting imbecile.” You’ve known him long enough now to know that this is Karkat’s version of a compliment. He smiles at you, a rare event, and flashes his pointy teeth. You’re glad you’re wearing the shades, because if you weren’t you wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that you’re blushing intensely. You then avert your gaze to the rest of the table. Everyone is smiling, or cheering, or clapping in congratulations. (Except Eridan, of course, who is pretending he can’t hear. Feferi punches him in the shoulder, and motions to you, in an attempt to make him join in. He just curls his lip and frowns.) Even Gamzee is lazily waving his Faygo in your direction, though you have a mind that he has no clue what’s going on.

This musical is gonna be so fuckin’ awesome. Plus, Karkat gets to order you around. Score.

The first rehearsal meeting is this afternoon. For the rest of the day, it’s all you can think about. In math class, you’re already going over what you know from when you watched the movie with Karkat a few months ago while he rambled about the many adaptations of the tale of Hercules, and how the Disney one is completely inaccurate but still manages to be "ONE OF THE BEST ANIMATED FILMS OF ALL TIME." At least, you think that's what he said. And now he's recreating it in stage form, with you as the title character.

With a sharp ding of the bell, everyone is out of class before you know it. You've spent so much time daydreaming about how dope the school play is gonna be, you almost forgot you were in class. You fling your bag over your shoulder and near sprint to the auditorium. You thought you would be late, but you were wrong. The only other person standing outside the door is Karkat.

"Why are you so early, dipshit? Rehearsal doesn't start for another-" He checks his watch. "-hour. The dance club is using the auditorium. We have to wait."  
You look at him quizzically until it all comes back to you in a flurry. Now you remember. Rehearsal doesn't start until 5. What the hell are you supposed to do in that empty hour? What is everyone else doing? Most importantly, why is Karkat here? You save that question for later, and instead give Karkat a joking reply.  
"Oh Karkat, you've caught me. Obviously I came here to make out with you passionately, in plain sight, in the school hallway." At the widening of his eyes and the light pink dusting his cheeks, you decide to turn that statement into an unironic one. Still not in plain sight though.  
"Come on, let's go." You grab his arm, dragging him to the nearest bathroom. He's trying to pretend like he doesn't want to go with you, but you can tell he does. From the look on his face. From the hiding his face in his shirt. From the awkward glances from you, to behind him, and back to you. You've figured out what-the-hell-you're-gonna-do-in-the-empty-hour.

You corner him in the bathroom stall, your arms now wrapped around his shoulders. His eyes, sparkling with the desire to kiss you, move to make contact with yours. He has to stand on tiptoe to kiss you. It's adorable. In less than a second, his lips are on yours. You run your hands through his hair, over his round, nubby horns. After about half an hour of making out in the school bathroom, he pulls away, gasping for breath. He looks you in the eyes, holding your hands in his, and then looks away, blushing and frowning at the same time, as if he’s still trying to hide the fact that he likes you despite having dated you for six whole months now. If you weren’t his boyfriend, it would be incredibly awkward to watch, and extremely difficult to interact with him. But, big surprise, you are his boyfriend. And you think it’s cute. You could fall in love with him again and again and again, and never get tired of it. You still remember the exact moment you fell in love with him.

It was a warm summer’s evening, and he invited you over as you had paired up for an English project. You weren’t dating at this point and you only really paired up with him because he was the only one in the class that you sort of knew, along with the fact that you had a fat crush on him, but probably hadn’t admitted it to yourself yet. The task you had been given was to rewrite a scene in a Shakespeare play in a modern context. You can’t exactly remember the scene you were assigned, but you do remember the joy in Karkat’s eyes underneath his stone mask of emotions when he found out. Karkat knows a lot more about theatre (and the performing arts in general) than you and most other people do.

Surprisingly, the moment you fell in love with him wasn’t because of something he said, or did, or a look he gave you. It happened while you were simply watching him meticulously analyse every word of the scene, trying to get it completely perfect. It was the pure enjoyment he got out of this, his mask falling off once he was doing something he loved, that kept you staring at him, thinking about him, and eventually, dating him. At that moment you felt like it was just you and him in the world, you were the only ones to exist, and you felt you had finally cracked the code to understanding him, the way he behaved. He was angry. Absolutely filled with rage, as a method to soothe the blisters that the misunderstanding world around him had carved. But it was when he felt safe, when he was finding solace in something (in this case Shakespeare) that the rage melted away and he was himself. Truly himself. And you wanted to spend more time with him, with Karkat, around this new side of him that he had shown you.

Karkat’s hands are growing sweaty from the increased heat emanating from his body as a result of looking at you. It occurs to you that you’ve both been standing there, blushing, for a good while. How long exactly? You remove your left hand from Karkat’s to check your watch, when he answers the question for you.  
“Dave. We’ve been in here for 40 minutes. It’s almost time for rehearsal to start, and I need to get there early because those dance losers are so far up their own asses that they probably won’t acknowledge that I booked the auditorium, and lock it before we get there. Also-”  
You can sense a lecture from him about how making out in a bathroom before rehearsal is “unprofessional”, so you cut him off.  
“Ok ok Mr. Professional Asshole Director Of Hercules, I get it.”  
“Shut up.”  
You bend down a little and give him one last kiss, and then sling your bag over your right shoulder, like a Cool Guy. He’s crossing his arms again, slipping back into his angry persona.  
“...Fucking asshat.” He mutters under his breath.  
“Oh come ON Karkat, are you gonna act like we didn’t just make out for half an hour? You know as well as I do that you enjoyed that, because I’m just so fucking irresistible. Why are you embarrassed? We’re alone. Everyone knows we’re dating anyway.”  
“I’m not embarrassed. Making out with your boyfriend in a school bathroom before rehearsal is. AND it’s unprof-”  
“Ok whatever, same thing.” You say, unlocking the door.  
He shoves you out of the stall.  
“NO IT’S NOT. SHUT UP YOU ABSOLUTE SHITHOLE.” He yells, but you can’t stop laughing at him. He gets worked up over the smallest things.  
“Ok, I won’t shut up and I will keep being a “shithole” because it’s funny, but I still know you liked it. And you do too.”  
You spend the trip back to the auditorium bickering about “unprofessionality”. Down the hallway, the “dance losers” are streaming out of the auditorium, in leggings and assortments of flexible dance shoes. The head of the dance club tosses Karkat the keys to the auditorium, and as the crowd thins, Jake English is one of the last to stroll out the door, and starts waving frantically as he spots you and Karkat. Karkat is clearly not as thrilled to see him as Jake is, but he doesn’t seem to notice.  
“Well if it isn’t my favourite troll fellow and his taller pal! I’m so excited to see the cast I’ll be choreographing! When does rehearsal start?”  
You try to tell Jake it’ll be in around 5 minutes, but Karkat interrupts, pissed off.  
“Jake, for the benefit of us all, please keep the noises that come from your British ignorance shaft to a minimum.”  
“Well, alright then, if that’s what you desire, Karkat, my buddy.” He whimpers, a little hurt.  
Sometimes you feel a little sorry for Jake. He really doesn’t mean any harm. He can just get a little bit… intense, and you can definitely empathise with the people like Karkat who find him insufferable, what with Dirk being his boyfriend and frequently being around him.

Karkat opens the door and walks into the auditorium, with you and Jake following closely behind. Since Jake is trying desperately not to be annoying, the room is painfully silent, but it clears up once everyone trickles in. Soon enough, the show’s entire cast and crew is seated in the auditorium, and chatter echoes throughout it.

“OKAY EVERYONE, GLANCE NUGGETS ON ME.”  
The only people to acknowledge that Karkat is speaking are you and Gamzee, but you don’t think Gamzee really counts, because all he did was turn his head a bit and then go back to whatever weird shit he was doing. So it’s just you. Karkat takes a deep, exasperated breath and yells at the people in the seats, almost shaking the auditorium with the volume of his shouting.  
“HEY, YOU INSUFFERABLE TWATS. PAY ATTENTION TO MY INSANELY SEXY FACE, OR GET THROWN INTO THAT MASSIVE FUCKING SEARING BALL OF HEAT IN THE SKY, DOUCHEBAGS.”  
Now everyone is listening. No one wants to take him up on the offer of being thrown into the sun.  
He puts away the shouty voice.  
“Thank fuck. Everyone, welcome to the first rehearsal for our school’s rendition of the Disney classic, Hercules. I look forward to shouting myself hoarse at all of you. Let me introduce your non-cast members who are participating in the show, and then we’ll start running through our scripts.”  
The first Hercules rehearsal was a success, in both yours and, thankfully, Karkat’s, opinion. That night, Karkat went home with you and Dirk, and stayed the night for the first time in a while. You shared a bed and fell asleep with him in your arms, watching some romcom he picked out. This one was actually quite entertaining, but the lull of sleep was too powerful. The last thing he said to you before you nodded off was:  
“Dave, thankyou for paying attention to me today the first time I asked. It really helped. If you didn’t do that I might have just gone batshit.”  
And then-  
“I love you.”  
Karkat doesn’t often say he loves you, so when he does it feels real and genuine. This brought a smile to your lips and you replied back, with a kiss on the forehead:  
“I love you too.”  
You held him tighter after you said that. All you wanted to do was hold him tight. For once you were content. Happy, even. It felt just like it did when you fell in love with him for the first time: like it was just the two of you, and you were the only ones to exist in that moment.  
“Goodnight Karkat.”


End file.
